STRIVE – Structural Regional Inequalities in Vocational and Educational Outcomes: Examining regional disparities in academic and vocational education and their effects on socioeconomic opportunities

How does the regional education structure at place of residence affect the socioeconomic outcomes of young men and women?

Austria’s school system is characterized by early tracking, in which students are channeled after primary school into either the academic secondary school (AHS) or the compulsory secondary school (MS), and social and regional inequalities in this access have been repeatedly documented. Access to the academic track versus the compulsory track is markedly lower in rural regions than in urban ones. These regionally disparate opportunity structures for educational decisions persist into subsequent stages of education and — according to the project’s central hypothesis — lead, in a path-dependent manner, to higher education (HE) or vocational education and training (VET) in different occupational fields, which in turn are decisive for later socioeconomic prospects. So far, however, little is known — in countries with early tracking — about how significant the spatial distance between place of residence and secondary school is, at the transition from primary to lower secondary level, for the socioeconomic prospects of young men and women.

The project pursues the following research questions using Austria as a case study:

• RQ1: To what extent does proximity to AHS vs. MS matter for educational choice after primary education, and is there variation by SES and gender?
• RQ2: What are the causal effects of track choice on future socioeconomic outcomes? Are they heterogeneous according to region, SES, and gender?
• RQ3: How does the establishment of new AHS in rural areas affect educational attainment and thus lead to differences in labor market opportunities?

The project is distinguished by a causal research design and a differentiated view of the socioeconomic prospects of young people in qualification-specific occupational fields as an outcome of their educational trajectories. To uncover inequalities, the project accounts for, first, the fact that returns vary across HE and VET fields — for instance, remuneration in certain VET fields exceeds that in fields requiring an HE degree. Second, returns are assessed not solely in terms of income, since socioeconomic prospects are equally shaped by characteristics such as prestige, job security, and working hours. Third, field specializations are strongly gendered, so that differences for young men and women are examined.

The data basis consists of comprehensive longitudinal register data on student cohorts, linked with aggregated field-specific indicators of socioeconomic quality (wages, job security, working conditions). Starting with a descriptive analysis of how proximity to AHS vs. MS influences school choice, the project then establishes causal effects of early track choice on socioeconomic outcomes, using proximity as an instrumental variable and the establishment of new AHS in rural regions as natural experiments.

The project will provide the first comprehensive evidence on how regional education structures shape inequality within the Austrian system of competence development, with particular attention to heterogeneity within both HE and VET. The findings are intended to support education policy measures aimed at improving educational provision and securing equitable occupational opportunities.

Information for the page:

Principal Investigator / Co-Principal Investigator:
Brigitte Schels / Stefan Vogtenhuber

Institutions:
Department of Sociology and Social Geography – University of Salzburg;  Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna (IHS)

Project duration:
2026–2028

Budget:
€ 345,559.57

Funding:
The project is funded through the Data:Research:Austria funding programme of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW).

Project number:
DATA_2025-62_STRIVE

Project Team

Brigitte Schels (Principal Investigator)
 Stefan Vogtenhuber (Co-Principal Investigator)
Bernhard Reicher
Matthias Stehle